Sunday, August 29, 2010

Birthday: The Year of the Treadmill...theme for upcoming year?

It's the night before my "birth" day, and I am pensive. Thus, I send this random rambling note to the void because well, because I can... I am that fortunate that I can...

It's easy to be born, relatively speaking. Much harder to live. This year, the number is 33. Oddly, I still look from out of my solid dark brown eyes and envision that number to be large. For instance, who wants 33 candles on their cake?? That would be obscene; most likely a fire hazard! Instead of keeping that fire extinguisher handy, you internally accept the quip that "age is not a number." Ironically, most women lie about their age and most men don't act like theirs. (I heard that once and I laughed out loud). So often I am mistaken for 22, 24. Is it the cherubic face, or the "youthful" (aka immature) mannerisms which causes everyone who meets me to outrightly debate my age? Apparently, I've been told I smile too much! At 33, should I immediately cease to show my pearly whites to match my appropriate age? Never! I try to revolt against such social standards.

Curiously, it's not the age that makes me sit soberly quiet in the dark. It's not even the location that perplexes me. I come from no general hospital; no mid-wife near the corner of the bed. It is that quote, "I exist therefore I am" that rings truest with me because one day (maybe not even tomorrow) I came into the world without a record, a pen or paper. No surgical equipment. No medical masks. I just purely came to life, like a puppet that banked on a wish. Unlike many of you, I don't hold those memories of childhood. Though, it's an awesome concept to me. I was suddenly 8 years old when I came to life.

Yet, I can't remember when I started the list. It must have been around 18 that I was truly organized about it. The list began as markers; a timeline of events, goals, a directional guide to where you want life to go. My friend once informed me of Harvard's success rates of the students that had a "life plan" versus the ones that didn't. The percentage of success (aka accomplishing goals and living happily) was near 80%.

To me birthdays are about living happily. It's the day not for celebration, per se, though I must admit I do enjoy that pagan ritual! It's about reflection; looking back; looking forward. It's a weigh of how happy your life is. If you had to "defend" your position in death, you could clearly say "I lived well to myself and to others. I did what I wanted. I lived fully in what I sought out for." This takes guts, cognizance and perpetual drive. When you lack the courage or clarity or when you find you have stopped...there's death. There will birthdays be no more!

Hence tonight, I reviewed my 2009 like some film critic assessing the plot A storyline. I call last year's film "The Year of The Treadmill." I had 15 goals written on my to-do list. Only 3 major goals were accomplished. Previous years, the outcome was quite different; with either all the goals 95%-100% finished. At first I sat mystified like Einstein hovering over his mathematical formula, E=MC2. I was simply studying the cinematic highlights of my 2009 day-to-day life like on a reel. Then it occurred to me that several people in my life were on treadmills too. Was it something universal, like a quantum energy; an unconscious collective that many people went through??

What exactly is "The Year of the Treadmill," really? It is the year you run in place, or you run through a labyrinth maze only to return to the same place as you started. For example, three friends made journeys from NYC to LA only to return to NYC to live out exactly the same life as they had before. Another two friends created similar plot lines; difference being Vegas and Miami. As for me, I returned to exactly the same point as last year too, though the details I won't provide. I'm finding through various conversations that 2009 was a dream for most people, as if the year actually did not pass. A soul searching year. In other words, a year of not rapid advancement forward, but instead returning to the same destination as you started from.

There's merit to running in place. Let me think...Good stamina. Comfort in familiarity, perhaps. However, my previous years included 2007's "Westbound," 2008's "Project Network." It's not about the labeling. It's about the journey. I'm neither mad or sad that I walked through the labyrinth or ran on a treadmill. 2009-2010 was what it was. A year that I stood still. 2001-2002 was a very similar year. Certain events like September 11th changed the course of that year. That birthday reflection feels very similar to the thoughts I am having now.

What will 2010-2011 offer from August 30th to August 30th? I dunno yet. But what I do know is the list has been defined. Clarity began. Courage is re-boosted. I've got my gear in drive. There may be no cure for the common birthday, as the astronaut John Glenn once said, but once tomorrow passes, I believe I have a remedy:

I wish all you friends with birthdays today, tomorrow or next week...to remember-- "It's not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years."-- Abraham Lincoln. A traditional birth or an immaculate conception, it's a day to recollect all you were, are and strive to be. Wishing the happiest day to you...with love.

Johanna

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posted by Only The Lonely @ 10:53 PM